Mud. SO MUCH MUD! Help.

My Chicken run is sorta goin down hill. Do you think the sand will wash away when it rains?


If not so `sloped' as to find new drainages cut from high-to-low side of run after an inch-an-hour rain, just keep adding sand to a greater thickness on high side, and line low side (along fencing) with large stones and plant some tough ground cover between/along `berm'. Just rake rain cleaned sand back up over run surface (assuming uncovered run).

If slope is severe - consider terracing//ditching along contours. We have no more than a foot of topsoil over clay (run slopes away to both East & West (along crest of rise). Have continued to add & rake sand to high centers of runs - turkeys no longer accrete clay on legs and feathers until they appear to be unfired pottery. Chooks use deeper sand along stone `borders' for dirt bathing. How much sand will be required for amendment of local soil is pretty much revealed by experiment (and attention to local surface geology).

Addition of Ag Lime, every few years is a useful adjunct to raking (attend to the type of lime - plain, old, magnesium/calcium carbonate will do -limestone/dolomitic limestone): http://www.lime.org/lime_basics/faq.asp

We have 50' & 60' Shag Bark Hickories in chicken run and more Hickories/White Oaks shading both chicken and turkey runs. Raking out leaf/branch/nut clutter (along with poop & feathers) is actually possible, now (took two years of adding a couple hundred pounds of larger grained sand every month - construction sand - not ultra fine `tube' sand - //probably best to acquire large quantity from local quarry).

Bought a couple 8' long wooden handles and wide, flat-tined plastic garden rake heads for the clean-up.
 
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